


Corner of 6th & How to Forget

by APgeeksout



Series: Corner of 6th & How to Forget [2]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:08:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3663318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“'What did he do to' me? We're talkin' about the same Seth Rollins, right? Yea high," he raised a hand somewhere around his temple, dropped it to rub again at his stiff neck, "stupid hair, talks too much about Crossfit and Harry Potter?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Corner of 6th & How to Forget

**Author's Note:**

> Medically inaccurate amnesia is deeply medically inaccurate. Set post-8.18.2014 episode of Raw. 
> 
> Written with the enticement of mithen, and following on from the end of her [The Descent of Their Last End](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3603693).

Dean thought he could still feel Seth's weirdly mournful gaze, settling heavy on his shoulders, winding a tight coil of tension down his spine, even after he'd left the hotel behind in the curtain of softly-falling snow. Snow that was melting as soon as it landed, running down the back of his neck as a trickle of cold water, and giving everything a wet sheen that caught and threw back streetlights, headlights, storefront neon. That was probably the reason everything was blurred at the edges. Yup. Trick of the light.

He crammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, knowing better than to think that he might be lucky enough to have stashed a pair of gloves there. He did find a book of matches and a blister-pack of nicotine gum, both half used-up, and an unfamiliar cellphone.

He took it out to study as he trudged down the sidewalk of downtown... Wherever. It was newer than his own – a touchscreen instead of buttons – but if he didn't recognize the phone, he did know the number on the caller-ID readout. The too-bright screen told him that Roman had left half-a-dozen voicemails on this phone. He didn't know how to listen to them, but after a couple of experimental jabs at the screen, it was ringing, tinny and loud enough to make him wince when he raised it to his ear.

“Dean?” Even through the shitty speaker and the thrum of his pulse, suddenly loud in his ears, he could hear the strain in Roman's voice.

“The one and only,” he said, his own weak chuckle not loud enough to drown out the breathy sigh of relief at the other end of the line.

“Thank God,” Roman breathed out. “Where are you?”

“Walking.”

“'Cause it's such a nice night out that you figured it'd be better to take the air than let the docs keep you under observation?” Roman's laugh held an edge of hysteria that twisted something in Dean's gut. “I love you, man, but you gotta let me know when you're gonna do this shit.”

“Sorry,” he offered. “I'd say it won't happen again, but I figure you know me better than that.”

“Yeah. So, where am I coming to get you?”

“Kinda got turned around,” he confessed, squinting at the surrounding storefronts. “There's, uh, a taqueria here, and a pawn shop. Record store. Wait, there's an address on the door.” He focused with effort and read off the numbers stenciled on the plate glass.

“Okay. Sit tight. Be there in five. Stay on the line with me?”

“Sure. Probably look like I'm casing the joint either way.”

“At least this way I'll hear if they come pick you up for vagrancy. Know where to come bail you out,” Roman said.

There was a series of beeps, and when Roman spoke next there was a weird echo on the line that Dean hoped was the speakers of the rental taking over the call and not something coming loose inside his own head. “You sound pretty rough. How're you feeling?”

“Eh, I've had worse,” he said, shrugging even though Roman couldn't see it. Just like he couldn't see the sudden shiver that rolled through him.

“Why does that not fill me with confidence?”

He walked a little further up the block and ducked out of the wet snow into the recessed doorway of a Vietnamese bakery. “I'm fine. Walkin', talkin', bein' a pain in your ass.”

Roman chuckled, but it was half-strength at best. “Seriously, Dean, this was bad. Scary bad. They've been talking about brain injury, cognitive impairment.”

“'But how can they tell, Micheal?!'” he drawled in his best JBL impression.

Roman's laugh was heartier this time. “Still,” he said, sobering, “after I get my hands on that scumbag, there's not gonna be enough pieces of Mr. Money-in-the-Bank left to fill that fancy briefcase.”

Briefcase? A wave of dizziness crowded in on him, and he leaned against the doorframe to think. Sandow'd shot his wad back in... October? And the pay-per-view wouldn't come back around until June. So, who...

“Hey,” Roman's voice broke into his reverie, “you still with me?”

“Always,” he answered without thinking.

“Good,” Roman said softly. “I think I'm about there. Can you see me yet?”

He hauled himself out of the doorway and back onto the sidewalk. A dark-colored SUV was moving slowly up the block. He stepped out toward the curb with a wave, and the headlights flashed at him.

“I'm gonna let you go,” he said. “My ride's here.”

He couldn't see Roman through the windshield yet, but he didn't really need the visual to know that he was shaking his head, rolling his eyes. He stuck the phone back in his pocket and focused on standing straight, looking strong.

Roman pulled to the curb and hit the hazards. Dean blinked against the flickering lights and moved toward the passenger door. Either he was even more sluggish than he felt, or Roman had really hustled around the nose of the car, because before his hand had even curled around the door handle, Roman was there, raking an assessing gaze over him, head to foot and back again, before he hauled him into a hug.

“You're freezing,” Roman scolded, one hand coming up to cradle Dean's head where it had tipped forward to rest against his shoulder.

He made a soft noise of agreement, muffled against the fabric of Roman's jacket, dry and warm under his cheek.

“Don't suppose there's any chance you'd let me take you back to the hospital without pulling another Houdini?” Roman asked, threading warm fingers through his hair.

“Nope.” He shook his head without actually lifting it from Roman's shoulder. Leaning into his brother's bulk and warmth was pretty much the steadiest he'd felt all night. He wasn't in any kind of hurry to give it up. “Pretty much done with doctors.”

“I figured.” Roman gave a resigned sigh and waltzed-stepped him to the side to open the door. “Get in.” A hand at his hip nudged him toward the passenger seat. “And take off your coat. It's soaked.”

“You gonna buy me dinner first?” he groused, even as he obediently hoisted himself into the seat and shrugged his shoulders out of his coat.

“If you think you could eat something,” Roman said mildly from where he was leaning into the backseat, rummaging around for something. Christ, he must look almost as bad as he felt, if Roman was refusing to rise to his bait.

“Nah, hospital Jell-o filled me right up.” He freed his arm from the sleeve that had tangled itself up on his admission bracelet and shivered against the cold air on his bare skin. The only clothes he could find in the hospital room had been jeans with shredded knees and this threadbare tank top. They fit and all, but he felt kind of exposed without his riot vest.

“Here.” Roman traded him the dripping coat for a dry hoodie, old and soft, the Georgia Tech logo almost worn away from the washer-faded gold fabric.

He wriggled into it gratefully and sank back against the seat, closing his eyes and tucking his fists deep into the front pocket. 

And then Roman was there again, leaning across him to fasten the seatbelt over his lap and tuck the shoulder strap behind him. He screwed his face up into a scowl. He knew he was supposed to be affronted - that Roman would worry if he didn't bristle at this babying - but, fuck if he wasn't too tired to actually mind. 

"Don't start," Roman said, his stern expression belied by the soft peck he pressed against Dean's temple before he raised the sweatshirt's hood, tugging it gently into place around his face. Steady hands cupped his cheeks through the fabric for a moment before Roman withdrew, closing the door, gently - like he knew about the headache building steam along his tense jaw and up his stiff neck.

The hood smelled faintly like the goop Roman worked into his hair at night, something sweet and herbal and familiar, and the vents were all breathing steady streams of warm air onto him and Roman was quiet beside him and the road rolled along underneath them and Dean wasn't even aware he'd drifted until Roman's hand resettled on him, easy pressure on his shoulder, shaking him awake in the parked car.

“Rise and shine,” he said softly.

He probably should've had an answer for that, something a little livelier, a little surlier than the creaky groan that ground its way out of his throat as he lurched his way out of the seat to the floor of a parking garage. The way Roman dropped an arm around his shoulders and tucked him into his side for the walk to the elevator pretty much confirmed that it sounded as pathetic as it felt.

He used Roman to anchor himself – hand fisted in his jacket, face tucked into the crook of his neck – when the elevator ride dropped the bottom out of his stomach, and let the big man shepherd him through the hallways to their room. While he waited for Roman to key them in, it occurred to him, distantly, that the loud carpet and sedate wallpaper were different than the corridor outside Seth's room had been.

In the room, Roman nudged him to the nearest bed, and he curled up on the bedspread, dimly tracking his brother's movement through the room: adjusting the lights to their lowest setting, sifting through their bags, running water in the bathroom. He must have dropped out again, because the next thing he was aware of was the mattress dipping with Roman's weight settling at his side.

“Hey, sit up a sec,” he said. “You need to take these before you crash.” There were a few white pills in his cupped palm, and Dean must have been squinting at them suspiciously, because he added, “Over-the-counter.”

He shifted heavy limbs slowly, stretching and straightening laboriously. “Hair's the only part of me that isn't stiff,” he grumbled, pushing the hood back from his face. “What kind of match was that?”

Roman paused, fingers closing spasmodically around the pills, and Dean looked up to find him watching him carefully. Right. He should probably know the answer to that.

“Falls Count Anywhere,” Roman said, taking Dean's hand and turning the painkillers into his palm.

He downed them with the cup of water Roman pressed into his hand.

“You remember any of it?”

He thought - or tried to think, anyway - but his head was thick and slow, and something settled cold and heavy in his chest. He shook his head, scrubbed a hand through his drying hair.

Roman nodded, thoughtful. “Doctor said that might happen.” He reached out and brushed the hair off of Dean's forehead, sharp eyes following his careful fingers. Dean hadn't braved a mirror, even back at the hospital, but he knew there was a gnarly bump under his hairline, a tender bruise spreading down his face that Roman was trying not to graze. “You ate a Curbstomp,” he added ruefully.

His stomach twisted sharply. “Shit,” he breathed. “Is that why Seth is being so weird? Staying somewhere else? Like, I freaked out on him or something? Like the time you bagged me with a Spear?”

It took him a long moment to notice how still Roman had gone beside him.

“You've seen Seth? Tonight?” he asked, voice tight.

He nodded helplessly, the hollow in his gut expanding rapidly at the stricken look on Roman's face.

“What'd he do to you?”

“'What did he do to' me? We're talkin' about the same Seth Rollins, right? Yea high," he raised a hand somewhere around his temple, dropped it to rub again at his stiff neck, "stupid hair, talks too much about Crossfit and Harry Potter?"

Roman was silent for a long time. Not his usual steady quiet of a big man who'd never needed to run his mouth to make his point, but the kind of edgy, overwhelmed loss for words that Dean knew the other side of too well. 

“He didn't do anything except creep me out,” he said, finally, just to break the oppressive quiet. “You're doing a pretty good job there, yourself."

Roman looked at him apologetically and leaned in to reel him into another hug, his heavy sigh ghosting over Dean's cheek on the exhale. “I don't know that we are talking about the same Seth.” Dean stiffened at that tone, soft and defeated, and Roman rubbed a careful hand along the tense line of his back as he continued. “What's the last show you remember clearly?”

He didn't want to answer. Didn't want to know what the ache in his head and the emptiness in his belly were trying to tell him.

“Rybaxel.” Roman flinched, fingers digging into him as he continued. “N.A.O. crashed the party.” It'd been the kind of night for letting people hold him, as much for their sake as his own, but the way Roman was wrapped around him now was all wrong, shaken and clinging, same as Seth had been. “How long?”

“Six months,” Roman whispered thickly.

And then Dean was the one doing the clinging. Half the fucking year. He was choking on the enormity of the hole in his head. Wrestlemania. A couple-dozen episodes of _RAW_. Seth's birthday. Roman's. Fourth of July, fireworks in the desert. A hundred-odd nights on the road. Summerslam. All of it gone.

He laid his head on Roman's shoulder and sucked in shallow gulps of air while his brother rubbed easy circles into his back and murmured a refrain of _I got you_ s and _just breathe for me_ s into his hair, and gradually, he found that he could. Even as the thud of his heart slowed and the knot in his throat receded, something else started chewing at his gut. Something that had slipped past him earlier.

“Roman?”

“Hmm?” 

“Who has Money-in-the-Bank?”

The way Roman flinched again, arms momentarily clenching tight around him before he steadied, told Dean more than his words. “Seth. Should've been you, though.”

“Least it's one of us, right?” he ventured. “Not somebody else who's gonna blow the cash-in.”

When he finally answered, Roman's voice sounded raw, “There isn't an “us” anymore.”

Dean felt him swallow hard, and Roman pulled him in, impossibly, closer. “The Shield is over.”

“Oh,” he breathed. He pulled back, and Roman let him go. “Guess we knew it wasn't forever.”

“Maybe. Little longer would've been nice.”

He flopped back on the bed, graceless, booted feet still on the floor, one knee jogging absently. This was his brothers all over: not turning him out when he knocked at the door, picking up his calls, still taking better care of him than he ever had on his own, even though there was nothing in it for them anymore. He kept his eyes on the ceiling and tried for a conversational tone. “So, how'd I do it?”

Roman jerked to his feet and let loose with a string of curses that would've earned him a handsome fine and a few weeks relegated to dark matches if he'd done it in front of a camera. He gradually ran out of steam and sank to the floor beside the bed.

Dean turned his head to smirk at him. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“Swear to God, he's leaving Nashville on a stretcher,” Roman growled, reaching across the bedspread to grasp his forearm. Dean shifted to close his own hand over the intricate lines of Roman's ink, locking them into a clinch.

“You're probably not gonna believe this,” Roman continued, “but I gotta know I said it to you anyway: None of this bullshit is on you. None of it.” His thumb stroked over the worn sweatshirt. “Seth is the one who fucked us up. You didn't do anything but trust him.”

“Knew there was a reason I don't do that shit much.” He paused at Roman's pained look. “Or, I don't know, maybe I started and I just don't remember?”

Roman shook his head, disapproving, but his grip on Dean tightened, reassuring as anything. “Good thing I know you trust me enough to take my word when I say you're not funny.”

“Hey, I'm tryin' here.” Even to his own ears it sounded forlorn.

“Yeah,” Roman agreed easily, “that much hasn't changed.”


End file.
